“Well, I gathered that in certain cases the Special Medical Board uses its discretionary power to incarcerate persons whose opinions or convictions make it impossible for them to embrace what I may call the Meccanian ideals of life.”
I felt I was treading on delicate ground, but as Prigge on a previous occasion had openly approved of putting people into lunatic asylums if they did not accept the Authority of the Super-State I felt justified in sounding Lickrod on the point. To my surprise he betrayed no embarrassment.
“You are probably not aware,” he said, “of the remarkable strides that have been made by our medical scientists in Meccania during the last fifty years. The pathological side of psychology has received great attention, with the consequence that our specialists are able to detect mental disease in cases where it would not be suspected by less skilled doctors. I believe I am right in saying that our experts detected the disease now widely recognised as Znednettlapseiwz (Chronic tendency to Dissent) long before it was known in other countries that such a characteristic was in any way connected with brain disease. The microbe has been fully described in the twenty-seventh volume of the Report of the Special Medical Board. The first clue to the existence of this disease was discovered during the great war, or perhaps a little later. A number of people persisted in putting forward views concerning the origin of the war, which were totally at variance with the official, and even the Imperial, explanatory statements made for the enlightenment of the public. At the time, it was regarded as just mental perversity. But what led to the discovery was that, after ten, and even fifteen years in some cases, notwithstanding every natural inducement to desist from such perversity, these people deliberately and persistently maintained the objectivity of their hallucinations. Experiments were made; they were under close observation for some years, and at length Doctor Sikofantis-Sangwin produced his theory and confidently predicted that the bacillus would be found in a few years. From that time the path was clear. The disease was most rife some forty years ago, soon after the beginning of Prince Mechow’s premiership; but since then it has almost disappeared. You see it is not hereditary, and the normal conditions of Meccanian life are very unfavourable to its development. But coming back to your point, although no doubt this is what has given rise to the calumny that the Special Medical Board uses its powers as an Inquisition, there is not a vestige of truth in the charge. Each case—and the cases are becoming very rare indeed—is investigated on strictly psycho-physiological lines. The patients in all cases are isolated, and placed under observation for some months before any pronouncement is made.”
“Your explanation is as usual most illuminating,” I replied, “and the patience with which you deal with my questions emboldens me to put to you some further difficulties that have been puzzling me.”
“Proceed,” replied Lickrod encouragingly.
“Well now,” I said, “your whole national culture is so elaborately perfect, from the standpoint of its basic principles, that it is certainly well worth studying by any student of sociology or politics or economics; yet we foreigners find ourselves hampered at many points whenever we wish to get into contact with certain kinds of facts. For instance, we may wish to find out what are the ideas, the current thoughts and feelings, of the various groups, and even individuals, who make up society. We cannot go and live with people and converse freely with them. I have not been able to understand why your Government takes such precautions to keep secret, as it were, facts which in any other country are as open as the day.”
“That is not at all difficult to answer by anyone who really understands the principles of our Culture, and I am surprised that none of the conductors who have instructed you have explained it—that is, if you have asked them,” he answered. “You have been hampered, you say. Yes, but you have been assisted too. You have been shown things in a way that would be impossible in most other countries within such a short time. Our Government has paid great attention to the instruction of foreigners. Instead of leaving them to gather all sorts of erroneous impressions, it provides them with authentic information. If, on the other hand, there are things which it does not wish foreigners to know, it takes care, and quite rightly, that they shall not obtain the information by any illicit means. For instance, if you were foolish enough to attempt to obtain information about our military affairs, you would find yourself against a blank wall; and, if I may say so, you might hurt your head against the wall. But then there are matters which, without being secret, cannot well be investigated by the individual inquirer. Take such a thing as the current thought of any particular class or group. Only a trained and well-equipped social-psychologist is capable of making such an inquiry. The liability to error is tremendous. All the books written by travellers reveal this. We do not wish to be exploited by casual and irresponsible travellers. We provide opportunities, under proper conditions, for expert investigators; but very few are willing to comply with the conditions. Besides, our Culture, like all the finest products of the human intellect, is a very delicate thing. When we have carefully educated our people in the Meccanian spirit we are not prepared to expose them to the insidious influences of irresponsible busybodies. Every Meccanian is valuable in our eyes, and just as we protect him from infection in the shape of physical disease, so we protect him from the more insidious but not less injurious influence of foreign ideas. You will find plenty of philosophical justification for that policy in the writings of Plato and Aristotle—two philosophers who are studied in all the foreign universities but whose systems of thought are utterly misunderstood except in Meccania.”